Dear John, I may have stated a "fact" about China being one very large time zone. Day to day reality is obviously different.
Thanks for that, Doug On Apr 20, 2010, at 14:46, John Goodman wrote: >> In China there are 1.2bn people spread over >> 60 degrees of longitude all living by the >> same clock time. >> >> Compared with their fellows in the easternmost >> 15 degrees, the others are effectively living >> with single, double and quadruple summer time. > > This is technically true, but in practice, not an ideal test. > > First of all, the vast majority of people in China live in a > longitude band of less than 30 degrees, running from Kunming in the > west to Harbin in the East. Time is standardized around Beijing, > which is close to the center of that range. > > I lived in Kunming for two years and I can't say that it was a > problem living on Beijing time. However, when I traveled further > west, to the frontier province of Xinjiang, Beijing time was > noticeably out of sync with my expectations of when the sun "should" > be shining. > > In Xinjiang, Beijing time is used for national schedules, such as > train timetables and government office hours. For everything else, > people use "local time," which is an hour earlier than Beijing time. > People in Xinjiang are in the habit of ignoring many government > dictates so keeping their own time is not a big challenge. > > The other major western province in China is Tibet. I haven't been > to Tibet but I have no trouble imagining that, like Xinjiang, people > ignore a lot of what the government mandates. Neither province is > ethnically or historically part of the Chinese empire and traditions > have more authority than law. > > Even in Kunming, a much more culturally Chinese area, people liked > to quote the time-honored maxim that "the mountains are tall and the > emperor is far away." Standardized time doesn't count for much when > habits are involved. > > Much of China is still rural. It will be a long time before > timepieces rule. > > John > > --------------------------------------------------- > https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial > --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
